Choices Read online

  CHOICES

  by

  Mia Malone

  Copyright © 2020 by Mia Malone

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  SHARING OR DOWNLOADING AN EBOOK WITHOUT PERMISSION IS EQUAL TO STEALING. SO PLEASE DON’T.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Books by Mia

  The Brothers series

  Gibson

  Padraig

  Joke

  Day

  Mac

  Waterfront series

  Waterfront Café

  Thor series

  Black

  Ice

  Choices

  Dear reader –

  Is it possible to start over when you’re fifty-something?

  I think so.

  I hope you enjoy Matthias and Nina’s story as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing it.

  And as always; I rely on the reader community to spread the word about my books as they see fit, so if you like what I write - reviews are highly appreciated, and please tell your friends.

  Thank you for your support!

  XOXO/ Mia

  Chapter One

  Choices

  choice /tʃɔɪs/ n.

  1. an act of choosing between two or more possibilities; something that you can choose

  2. the right to choose or the possibility of choosing

  3. a person or thing that is chosen

  Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

  Nina

  I sat there, looking out over the water, wondering what the hell I was doing.

  Perhaps I should have stayed at home? Cooked dinner and walked the dog, and talked to my daughter... Had a cup of coffee at the kitchen table and listened as the snores increased in strength when the man who still was my husband fell asleep on the couch while pretending to be interested in the news.

  I would have been alone there too, but at a considerably lower cost, not that I really had to care about that. But still.

  It was early in the evening, so there were mostly families and older couples in the restaurant.

  Was this what my life would be like, once we were through the surprisingly simple administration involved in ending our marriage?

  Would I sit alone in restaurants during a happy hour aimed at attracting senior citizens or people with small children, both being categories expected to be in bed early?

  I could ask my husband if we should give our marriage another chance. We’d decided that splitting up was the best thing to do, but he might agree to try again.

  He was a very agreeable man.

  We’d been on a family trip together a few months earlier, and that had given us things to talk about for a few weeks. We could go on another vacation. I could make an effort to come up with topics to fill the silence with. Could try to enjoy... my mind went blank, and I realized that I didn’t know what my husband of twenty years enjoyed anymore.

  He liked hanging out with his friends, who most of them were also my friends. Or, they had been, at least.

  I’d get half of our assets, half of our youngest daughter’s time for a couple of months until she went to college, and, oh God... I would get the dog, wouldn’t I?

  He’d get our friends because everyone loved my husband, and they’d incorrectly assume this was all on me, so they’d feel sorry for him and invite him to their get-togethers where they’d morph into his friends.

  Well, if he got the friends, then it would only be fair if I got the dog.

  I loved Peaches more than he did.

  Or yeah, maybe I didn’t, but I loved the old dog so much and wanted to have her with me. Dave wouldn’t have time for her since he would be busy going to couples-dinners and whatever else he’d engage in, which anyway mostly would be either polishing his beloved but rarely used Harley or falling asleep on the couch.

  A family had dinner at the table next to me, and I tried to hide that I was watching them. The restaurant had given the kids pens and papers with crosswords and drawings to color, which was something I recognized from when our daughters were young. We used to love those, and I glanced at the couple next to me and how they helped one child each, ignoring each other while working with the young boy and girl to solve the tasks.

  Christ, I thought. We used to do that.

  Was that when we stopped talking to each other?

  I wanted to lean over and tell the woman to stop coloring her daughter’s stupid whale and raise her eyes for five seconds to look at her husband. Maybe if he stopped solving the math puzzle for his son and looked back at her, they’d remember why they got married? He wasn’t handsome but looked like a good man.

  Was that what I was throwing away?

  In so many ways, I knew that it was and that my husband would be quite a catch for some other woman who would wonder what the hell I’d been thinking.

  So, should I try to stay?

  Maybe I was asking for too much from life?

  An image of my husband silently moving his empty plate toward me flashed through my mind. He did that to make it easier for me to move it to the sink where one of the girls or I would wash it.

  After I’d spent the day working in my upper management job. Planned the dinner. Spent precious weekend-time on grocery shopping. And cooked.

  No, goddamn it. I wasn’t asking for too much.

  Cooking, alone, and running alone, and sitting in the kitchen every damned evening alone. Walking the dog alone and traveling alone.

  I would not chicken out again. I had kicked off the process, and I would hang in there until we were through.

  Feeling so ridiculously lonely was not the life I wanted, and I wouldn’t do it.

  No way.

  Our children who were mostly young adults had cried when we told them, and I knew his mother would have plenty of things to say about this, which mainly would be plenty of veiled queries about how we could disappoint them this way.

  Most of my friends would be gone.

  But fuck all of that.

  Fuck. It.

  My girls would adjust, and they would still be mine.

  And when I thought about that day when I would stand in my own kitchen... Open a bottle of ridiculously expensive Chablis. Sing along with Eric Clapton and dance with my dog.

  I wouldn’t have to sleep next to him, and the realization that I’d never have sex with him ever again filled me with an embarrassing sense of relief.

  The woman at the table next to mine walked toward the restrooms, and the young girl moved to sit on her father’s lap. I looked at them, remembering how our daughters had done that, and our eyes met.

  He winked at me, and I had to fight my eyebrows from moving upward.

  “You should wink at your wife,” I said quietly.

  “What?”

  “She’s a good-looking woman. Say no to your kids every now and then and look at your wife instead.”

  “How the –”

  “Trust me on this one,” I cut him off. “I know what happens when you forget.”

  I raised a hand and wiggled my ringless fingers a little, and he got what I meant. I saw it in the way his jaws clenched, and in the curt nod I got, but then he looked away,

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.

  I wondered if I’d listened if someone had told me ten years ago to look at my husband.

  Probably not.

  The woman came back while I settled my bill, and I saw how
they smiled at each other, so maybe I’d just imagined things? Then one of the kids suddenly made a funny, squeaky sound, and they all laughed.

  If I asked my soon to be ex if we could try again, the four of us would laugh like that.

  Wouldn’t we?

  When I got back to the small cabin I’d rented, someone had parked in front of the house next to mine. An older man was pulling a worn duffel out of the trunk, but he turned when he heard my steps. He had longish, gray hair that he’d pulled back in a short ponytail and was wearing a pair of worn jeans and a flannel that had seen better days. His beard was neatly trimmed, though, and he might look like an old hippie, but he drove a Tesla.

  “Hey,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  It wasn’t polite to tell strangers your life was in goddamned shambles, or that you were heading inside to down a bottle of red and bawl your eyes out, so I pasted a polite smile on my face and mumbled something about doing fine and added a query about his wellbeing.

  “Fucking miserable,” he muttered.

  I blinked.

  Then I blinked again, wondering if I’d heard what I was pretty sure I’d heard.

  “Um,” I said, not sure how to respond.

  “I know,” he said with a crooked grin. “I should tell you that everything is peachy, but it isn’t, and I didn’t feel like lying.”

  His eyes were kind and friendly, and he didn’t look away when our gazes met.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” I heard myself asking. “My life is also fucking miserable, actually. We could commiserate on my porch.”

  His smile widened, and he was at least twenty years my senior, but he threw his bag on his own porch with surprising strength.

  “I’m Jacob,” he said on a chuckle. “Lead the way, girl. Nothing beats some good ol’ wine and whine.”

  ***

  We didn’t talk much about our unhappiness that first night, or not about mine, anyway.

  “I was supposed to spend some quality time with my sons. Neither could make it,” Jacob said.

  “My husband and I are splitting up,” I countered.

  “Shit,” Jacob said and winced. “Your misery is worse than mine.”

  “Not by much,” I snorted. “Pretty shitty of your children to stand you up.”

  He started laughing and shared that his youngest’s son broke an arm the evening before, and his oldest had a fire in his garage that very morning.”

  Then we talked some about his grandchildren, the hikes Jacob had planned to go on with his sons, and how he lived in a small town where the only connection to the mainland was a ferry. He said it was beautiful, and I shared that I’d never been on a boat with my car because the concept of getting my vehicle aboard one scared the bejesus out of me. He laughed at me but not in a mean way. It made me feel that I perhaps was a little bit alright, after all, ferry-phobia and all.

  He didn’t ask about my divorce, and I relaxed into the casual conversation, so I didn’t bring it up either.

  The next day, Jacob invited me to join him for a long walk in the nearby national park, and then we had dinner. We went across a low tide reef to explore a small island and walked a fantastic trail along the ocean. There were lobster rolls and dinners and picnics. We talked and laughed, and I’d never thought it would be possible to connect with someone so quickly, but we did, and it felt as if we’d known each other for years. People we met assumed that I was his daughter, which made us laugh a little, but neither of us corrected them.

  And now it was the last evening.

  I would leave early the next morning, and we sat on the porch like we had done that first evening, leaning against the wall with a bottle of red and two glasses between us.

  “I’m so happy I met you,” I murmured.

  “Happy I met you too,” he said gently, but his eyes were suddenly focused and curious. “Are you ready to talk about your divorce now?”

  “It’s all very amicable, so there’s not much to talk about,” I said, which was a coward’s deflection, so I added quietly, “I’m still a little messed up about it.”

  “Why?”

  “My life wasn’t bad, so maybe I shouldn’t have, you know... rocked the boat,” I said.

  Our eyes met, and I tried to smile, but it felt mostly awkward.

  “Life is about choices, Nina,” Jacob said quietly.

  “How do you know you make the right choice?”

  “You don’t, but that doesn’t matter,” he answered immediately. I wanted to protest, but he raised a hand, so I closed my mouth again. “So, what if it’s the wrong choice?” He made an impatient gesture with his hand and went on, “You don’t want to rock the boat? But, Nina, life is so terribly short, and not doing anything at all means you’re wasting your life away, stuck in a place where the only thing you have to hold on to is fear of actually living.”

  “Jacob...”

  “You evaluate your options and decide what to do. And then you live with whatever choice you made, with no regrets. Perhaps you’ll have to backtrack, and sometimes it hurts. That’s life. But sometimes what you get is so damned amazing all you can do is close your eyes and exhale. That’s life too, and it’s beautiful, sweetheart.”

  I looked into his kind eyes and felt a tear run down my cheek.

  “My husband and I agreed that splitting up was the right thing to do.”

  “Is it?”

  “I think so,” I said slowly. “I told him that what we had didn’t work for me. He said that it didn’t work for him either. Then we agreed to split up.” My voice hitched a little, but I went on, “I guess we both wanted it, but sometimes... I don’t know.”

  “What was it that didn’t work for you?”

  Oh, God. Could I really share how pitiful my life was?

  “Jacob,” I said with a wince.

  “Just tell me.”

  I hadn’t told anyone but didn’t want to pretend anymore.

  “I have a good life. I really do, but he doesn’t enjoy what I want to do, so I end up doing absolutely everything alone,” I whispered. “And the only one who ever tells me I’m pretty is one of my daughters. The only one who ever kisses me is my dog... So, I’m pathetically, desperately lonely.” I sighed and looked down on the worn deck. “Being lonely when someone is sleeping next to you is awful.”

  “Oh, sweetheart –”

  “I just thought that there has to be someone somewhere who’d want to spend time with me. Tell me I’m pretty even when I’m tired and have no makeup. Touch me. But then I started thinking... Am I asking for too much?”

  He sighed and reached for the bottle to top up our glasses.

  “I can’t tell you what to do, Nina,” he said quietly. “But I can tell you this; you’re not asking for too much. If you ask me, you’re asking for too little.”

  I sighed and twisted the glass around to let the wine swirl along the edges.

  “I’m not going to go back and ask him if we should try again, am I?”

  “Your choice.”

  “Damn it, Jacob,” I said with a snort of laughter. “It would be easier if you just told me what to do.”

  “Can’t do that, honey.”

  “I know,” I said, and sighed. He waited in silence while I took a sip of wine, and then another, as I thought things through. “I made a list,” I finally said.

  “A list?”

  “Yeah.” I felt foolish, so I turned to look at the dark outline of the trees against the sky. “Our oldest is in college out of state. And our youngest was going away for the weekend with her soccer team.” I took a deep gulp of wine, and then I told him. “I was nervous for weeks, and finally, I made a list of things we could talk about. You know? For when the silence became awkward.”

  He huffed out air, but I didn’t turn to see if it was laughter or anger.

  “Did it work?” he asked evenly.

  “It only lasted until Saturday afternoon,” I said sourly. “I made a whole page full of topics. Printed it in two
copies, and the damned thing didn’t last until –”

  His laughter echoed in the silent night, and I turned to stare at him.

  “Sorry,” he chuckled. “You printed it?”

  “Yes?”

  I’d spent a few hours of office-time on the thing, and had it on my computer so, of course, I’d printed it.

  “In two copies?”

  “One for my bag and one for... are you still laughing at me?”

  “Yes,” he said and made a visible effort to sober up. “Yes, Nina. You’re adorable but also hilarious, so yes, I’m sorry, but I am still laughing at you.”

  Our gazes held, and while I watched Jacob, the mess in my head slowly straightened itself out. I’d heard what I told him, and suddenly wondered how I could have thought I’d ever go back to what had been a pretty miserable life.

  “I’m not going back to ask him if we can try again,” I told Jacob, and perhaps also myself. “I’ll go back and sign the contract for my new house, and then I’ll figure out the rest of my life.”

  Warm, soft happiness edged with relief and a small tingle of anticipation washed through me when I said the words out loud, and it made me smile. Jacob’s eyes softened, and he touched his glass to mine.

  “Good choice,” he murmured.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Feels right, so yeah, it is. I won’t have any regrets.”

  ***

  Jacob

  Should he meddle?

  He’d promised himself to never become an interfering old coot, and it hadn’t always been easy, but he’d kept that promise.

  But now...

  No, he decided. She wasn’t ready for it, so he wouldn’t meddle.

  Not yet.

  “Will you come to my island for a visit?” he asked.

  “Not sure I’m brave enough,” Nina said with a soft giggle.

  He couldn’t hold back a chuckle. The ferries were big, and driving a regular car onto one of them was no worse than parking at the supermarket. She could also park at the ferry terminal and cross on foot, which he didn’t tell her.